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Gap Between Rural and Urban Internet Usage Holds Steady

Morning Consult

Rural residents still aren’t using the internet as much as their urban counterparts, according to a new study.

As Morning Consult reports,75 percent of urban residents reported using the internet in 2015, compared to only 69 percent of rural residents. Internet usage has increased a great deal overall since numbers began being gathered in 1998. But the difference between rural and urban use hasn’t changed. Over the past 17 years, the difference between rural and urban internet usage has hovered consistently in the six to nine percentage point range.

Regardless of location, white Americans use the internet more than other ethnic groups. Seventy-eight percent of white Americans used the internet last year, compared with 68 percent of African-Americans and only 66 percent of Latinos.